Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and author of the book Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, says that by dwelling on the inherent differences between fundamentalist Sunnis and Shias, Western governments and media have overlooked an obvious similarity.

Radicals on both sides believe “that the world should be under a caliphate,” or Islamic state, he says.

“The difference is, will it be under the Islamic doctrines of the Shia or the Sunni? That’s a long-term division. But both agree on the doctrine of jihad.”

Last Monday, the RCMP arrested Chiheb Esseghaier of Montreal and Raed Jaser of Toronto, accusing them of planning an attack on a Via passenger train and alleging that the plotters had support from al-Qaeda in Iran.

Over the years, the Iranian government has been implicated in attacks carried out by Shia extremist groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, but many commentators expressed disbelief that Iran would ever collaborate with a Sunni group such as al-Qaeda.

Fatah says that many people in Western institutions such as government, academia and the media have fallen for the “narrative” that because of a history of sectarian bloodshed, radical Sunnis and Shias couldn’t possibly collaborate.

He says it’s true, for example, that bin Laden viewed the Shias as non-Muslims, but bin Laden also considered the establishment of a global Islamic state more important than dwelling on sectarian differences, which is why he never fought the Iranians. “Osama might never have collaborated with Iran, but the Iranians were co-operating with al-Qaeda,” Fatah says.

As further proof of Iranian co-operation with al-Qaeda, Fatah cites an example involving Ahmed Said Khadr, the late father of Canadian-born extremist Omar Khadr and a known al-Qaeda operative. According to Michelle Shepherd’s 2008 book, Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, Ahmed drove his daughter, Zaynab, to Tehran so she could marry another al-Qaeda member.

Tarek Fatah’s assumptions dangerous for Shias worldwide. He is suggesting that Shia themselves are complicit in Shia genocide at the hands of Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda affiliated Takfiri Wahhabi-Deobandi groups in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Roughly this resembles Goebbels blaming Jews for their own Holocaust at the hands of Hitler’s Nazir murderous apparatus.

Tarek is also presenting a false Sunni-Shia binary by stereotyping Al Qaeda as representative of Sunni Muslims obfuscating the fact that Al Qaeda (and affiliated Taliban, Ikhwan and other violent Jihadist groups) represent only a tiny Takfiri Salafist-Wahhabi-Deobandi Jihadist minority and as such do not represent the vast majority of moderate Sunni Sufi (Barelvi) Muslims. In fact, right from Pakistan to Mali, Libya to Syria, tens of thousands of Sunni Sufi Muslims have been killed by Takfiri Deobandi-Wahhabi operatives of Al Qaeda and its various offshoots and affiliates.

Tarek also dangerously stereotypes all Shias as Iranians (a favourite tactic of Saudi and other Arab dictators to suppress their own indigenous Shia population, and also of the Sipah Sahaba terrorists in Pakistan to justify violence against Shias by describing them as Iranian agents), hiding the fact that majority of Shias in Pakistan and other parts of the world following Shia clerics (Ayatollahs) in Najaf (Iraq) than Qum (in Iran). He also hides the fact that Iranaian theocratic regime does not represent all Iranians nor does it represent all Shias.

By connecting Al Qaeda’s terrorist acts and intentions with Iran, Tarek Fatah is making yet another faulty and prejudicial assumption. It is an assumption that lacks substance but is likely to hurt Shias worldwide.

Unfortunately, these assertions by Fatah are obfuscatory and dishonest on many different levels.

1. Osama Bin Laden does not need to tolerate sectarian differences – he and his group simply eliminate them. While Fatah’s ridiculous claims are unsubstantiated, this is what Osama Bin Laden’s main deputy in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, had to say about Shias: “Kill all of them”. In September 2005, he declared “all-out war” on Shia in Iraq after the Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of Tal Afar. He dispatched numerous suicide bombers throughout Iraq to attack American soldiers and areas with large concentrations of Shia population. Zarqawi’s second wife, Isra, was 14 years old when he married her. She was the daughter of Yassin Jarrad, a Palestinian Islamic militant, who is blamed for the killing in 2003 of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the Iraqi Shia leader. Zarqawi’s biggest atrocities in Iraq included the attacks on the Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad in March 2004, which killed over 180 people, and the car bomb attacks in Najaf and Karbala in December 2004, which claimed over 60 lives. http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/09/200849143727698709.html

2. Making such claims is a typical tactic to cloak the overt and covert support of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE. As per his own public profile, Tarek Fatah spent nearly 11 years there between Pakistan and Canada. Given that Tarek has been seen in a number of anti-Israel anti-semitic rallies before his current convenient pro-Israel cloak, it seems that Fatah is a camouflaged Saudi sympathiser, anti-Shia bigot and is still in some way connected to Saudi propagandists and lobbyists.

It is already distressing to see the US and France support the Al-Qaeda dominated Free Syrian Army just as they supported Al Qaeda’s insurgency in Libya. The policy of opposing Al Qaeda in Mali and Pakistan while supporting them in Syria and Libya makes no sense on any level and is counter productive on many different levels.

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4 comments on “Iranian Shias are cooperating with Al Qaeda Sunnis to impose caliphate through jihad – by Tarek Fatah”

Noomane Raboudi, an Islamic expert who teaches in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, says he has trouble believing there is any collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda.

“For the jihadists, the Shia are not even Muslims — [al-Qaeda] almost have the same political view of the Shia as they do of Western people,” says Raboudi.

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hammurabi:

The article is full of contradictions n important omissions. Al Qaeda linked terrorists not only target Shias but also other Sunnis like Sufis frequently. Taliban killed thousands of Shia Hazaras before 9/11. Even now they are constantly targeted by Al Qaeda linked groups in Pakistan. Al Qaeda is linked to bombing of Shias in Iraq. For the Iranians, Iraq is more important than anything that alliance with Alqaeda can provide. Why would they co-operate with the murderers of Iraqis? It defies logic. Having said that, we should be really concerned about Canadian Jihadis (I read yesterday that one died in Dagestan). Who is radicalizing them? They all seem to be relatively young. How are they falling prey to radicals?

widerstand:

Quoted from article:

“Given the ideological differences between the Sunni militant group al-Qaeda and the theocratic Shia government in Iran, recent allegations that the two groups had conspired in a foiled attack in Canada struck many observers as odd.”
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Not odd…completely ridiculous would be more appropriate. The CBC does itself a great disservice by repeatedly attempting to establish a link, I would add.

Here’s a headline you won’t see in the near future, that we know is true…”The US and Canada, (“leadership”), agree on torture and extra-judicial murder.”

“I think it would be extraordinarily foolish to ignore the .. likelihood of further co-operation between the Iranian regime and Sunni Islamic extremists, including al-Qaeda,” says David Harris.

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(1) Does Mr. Harris have a proof of such past or existing co-operation (since the word “further” was used?

(2) There are documented proofs of collaborations between the Wahhabi Saudi Arabian Islamic terrorism and Al-Qaeda. Example: Saudi Arabia financed the Saudi Arabian Osama Ben Laden and his terrorist group against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

(3) It is known that the Iranian regime and Al-Qaeda are bitter enemies, and Al-Qaeda blows bombs day after day in both Iraq and Syria, both of which are pro-Iranian.

(4) If Iran wants to have allies, does it make sense for them to go to the most hated group of terrorists in the world?

(5) It is a fact that bitter enemies may agree on things in life; like most Britain and the IRA may agree on being Christians. Iran and Al-Qaeda may agree on being Muslims and Islam may have jihad (= Muslim holy war against unbelievers), but the word might be interpreted differently in terms of its use. For example, Iran deals closely with some unbelievers like Russia and China; the latter country calls itself communist and this is probably the worst for Muslims!

(6) Many people would agree that the Iranian regime has a terrible human rights record. But it seems that this issue is politically motivated. It seems that there are some in Canada, who want to pick a fight with Iran. This desire might be quite foolish.

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This article is deeply misleading. The headline implies Iran has announced some kind of formal agreement with Al Qaeda and inside all we find is speculation and innuendo about possible reasons they might at some point find points of agreement.

That might even be true, Iran would hardly be the first state to engage in some cynical realpolitik alliances with distasteful groups in support of perceived larger aims. The US has its own record of supporting terrorism at times when it was convenient for them, let’s not forget supporting the Contras and the “School of the Americas” where right wing guerrillas were trained to take down left wing governments in latin and south America. Of course the US is typically more likely to be on the side of horrible repressive governments which are never called “terrorists” even if they actually use terror to stay in power, but the fact remains that no one’s hands are pure and clean.

But whatever small links Iran may have with Al Qaeda, the neoconservative drum beat to invade and conquer Iran remains by far the bigger threat to human life and well being. Far more innocent people will be killed by such an act than by anything Iran is actually going to do (no, I never buy that Iran would use nukes on Israel in a first strike, the leadership are not crazy or suicidal, Israel has second strike capability not to mention the US fleet of nukes, MAD has stopped the far crazier regime of North Korea from using nukes, it will work on Iran if they ever do develop them).

Worth noting that Pakistan has plenty of links to Al Qaeda and no one ever insinuates we should invade/conquer them. Why? They have nukes. Small wonder Iran might want nukes.

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extraordinarily foolish’ say’s alot about the expert’s and those who fund them

Tarek Fatah —look into him and his history

Saudi Arabia—research this country

Al-Qaeda and 9/11 —please please look into it

In an article for the U.S. news site PJ Media in 2011, former CIA operative Brian Fairchild wrote, “One of the key aspects of Iran’s foreign policy has been to undermine the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East by supporting Sunni terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

remember black is white, war is peace, missles are named “peace keepers”

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Yes, it “would be extraordinarily foolish” to ignore the hawkish musings of a consultant for a shady right-wing “think tank”.

I’m starting to think that Mr. Harper has decided to take control of the CBC starting this morning!

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Tarek Fatah is hardly an objective source on this.

Perhaps we should see what the trial results in before falling for any hysterical pronouncements from those who would like to see a long-planned war with Iran come to fruition.

“In an effort to root out the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. declared war on Afghanistan in 2001”

That’s simply not true.

The war was already in the staging when the still-unexplained excuse arrived.

It was mainly a war to secure the route for the TAPI pipeline, as well as forward operating bases along the border with Iran. That’s why those responsible for it lost interest in the war when a rival pipeline constructed by Russia, China, and Iran rendered TAPI irrelevant, and convinced Turkmenistan to sign over its entire oil and gas reserves to these states.

Iran actually lent asistance in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“The fact that Iran may be close to having developed a nuclear bomb”

Except that this is not a fact.

According to the IAEA and intelligence community, Iran does not have a weapons program, and has done nothing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory, does not give it the right to do.

Lies about its energy & fuel program are being used the way similar lies about Iraqi WMD were; to frighten and confuse the public, conceal the motivations of those trying to start a war and keep them from the debate, and create the illusion that Iran is doing something which would justify military aggression.

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This looks more like an AP article than a CBC one.
It’s a bit disappointing that our national news agency would post articles about some vague references by unrecognized groups / individuals stating “it’s not impossible” that the Shia of Iran would cooperate with the hardcore Sunni Jihadists of al-Qaeda.
Sure it’s possible, just like it’s possible that the KKK is working with Israel on their own projects. But I’d put more confidence in winning the lottery than either of these scenarios.
It just looks like another attempt to justify aggression against Iran.

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find it incredibly ironic that Iran, (a decades long enemy of Al Qaeda), is being blamed as a backer of Al Qaeda terrorism but Saudi, (where most of the 9/11 terrorists…and Osama were from), is assumed to be innocent.

Iran is blamed for human rights violations but Saudi, (where women get flogged for driving, riding a bike outside of specific areas, talking back to a man or walking alone), is hailed as a bastion of humanity and a great friend to the west.

It seems more than a coincidence that this comes one day after Netanyahu once again announces that Iran has still not crossed their cartoon ‘red line’, but will any time now.

Every time the western press or politicians bring up Iran, I wonder what they are trying to distract us from.

this is pure lie i lived in india i am a hindu and even i will call it pure Bs there have been countless terrorist attack in india not even in one is a shia ever involved they co exist with everyone peacefully the only thing they ever do is cause traffic jam in evening peak hour traffic once a year . don’t want to convert people happy in their own world are most forward looking educating their children both sex’s to be doctors and tech they are very nice people and they don’t hurt anyone during their religous ceremony’s